WORM - RIFTBORN
by scifienthusiast
Summary: An ROB decides to alter Taylor Hebert's power for his own amusement. How will Taylor handle this altered power?


**CHAPTER 1: A HIGHER DIMENSIONAL BEING**

**Hello readers! This story will be one of my contributions to the Endless Space category of crossovers. ROB will be involved in the story.**

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**No ones POV**

It looked like it was going to be the same thing happening again. A certain human girl was going to receive a power giving shard from a hideous Space Slug. This girl would use the power given to her to save thousands of parallel worlds from an alien threat.

Somewhere in the Multiverse however, some Random Omnipotent Being decided to make things a little different. You see, this being was bored with the kinds of powers being granted to the girl. This girl would be granted abilities depending on which version of the universe she was in. These abilities range from the ability to create cyborgs to having god-like levels of power. When he saw that this version of the girl, who was named Taylor Hebert, was going to get her canonical bug control powers, he thought that the story would be too boring for him to watch.

So before the girl would receive her powers, he took the Queen Administrator Shard and combined it with a white icosahedron that contained the abilities and form of a Riftborn hero from Endless Space 2. After the girl received the modified Shard, her human form was now being transformed into the robotic shell of a female Riftborn.

With that trigger event coming to a close, the ROB brought stuff into that universe that would help the girl. He opened a portal into the aquifer that was under the city of Brockton Bay, which sucked in all the water. When the water was gone, ROB put in an entire manufacturing complex that could produce Riftborn units as well as other needed infrastructure such as nuclear fusion reactors and nanoforges.

After that was done, the ROB messed with the Rift that would bring the Riftborn into the Endless Space Universe, so that it would bring the entirety of the Riftborn species into the Worm dimension instead. The altered Rift also sucked in two of the few surviving Lost from the Endless Space dimension. These two primordial celestial beings were deposited on a fertile planet a few light years away from the Rift. After all the surviving Riftborn were brought in through the Rift a thousand years before the present time, He sealed it shut so that it could not be opened again by those in the Worm universe. He then left several data storage units that held knowledge of advanced technology for the Riftborn to find on their new, cold, homeworld. The ROB then went outside the dimension so he could see how this would all turn out.

**Taylor's POV**

It had been terrible being stuck in my own locker by my three bullies that day. There were used tampons and bugs in my locker and I felt like I was dying in there. I saw a vision in my mind after a few hours of being stuck in there. It was a vision of two giant crystalline beings twisting around each other, with crystals shedding off of them. I saw a crystal falling towards me which disappeared for a second before it continued on its trajectory towards me. After it hit me, I passed out.

I dreamt of a white place filled with geometric shapes I oddly recognized as people and planets. That place was so beautiful, serene, and peaceful. The people of that place spent their lives on meditating about beauty and peace until something horrific happened. I next saw a dark rift in space, and from that rift, dark tendril spread out from it and corrupted whatever they touched. Entire worlds were corrupted, the people of that place fled their homes and crossed into Rift to seek refuge. Then the dream ended.

When I awoke again, I was hovering off the floor outside my opened locker. Wait! How was I hovering off the floor?! I then looked at my limbs and became shocked. My unattached main arms were robotic, I have extra metallic ribbon-like limbs that had graspers on their ends situated on floating pads, and my unattached legs floated above the floor.

I quickly ran to the female comfort room. There in the mirror, I saw what was reflected back to me. The reflection revealed that my face is now a white robotic faceplate with two blue optics and a speaker in place of a mouth. The back of my head was long, polygonal, and white, with a golden ring of metal running across it. I didn't have a neck so my head was floating. My torso still looked feminine and was colored in black and red. There are also floating white wing-like pads above my shoulders. Around where thighs would be are golden orbs that are connected to my floating legs.

Panic and confusion filled my mind for several moments until I calmed myself down to assess my situation. I then noticed that my mind felt somewhat like a computer and that I could see things across various wavelengths of the electromagnetic spectrum. On the left side of my visual feed, I saw red tabs with labels on them. The tabs I saw were the following: Status Tab, Inventory Tab, Abilities Tab, Communications Tab, and the Skills Tab. The Communications Tab was glowing while the other tabs were unlit. I was thinking of how to open the Communications Tab when it opened by itself.

/Greetings Taylor Hebert, this is a message from the Random Omnipotent Being who did this to you. Congratulations! You have become being with superpowers, in this case, a Riftborn. While you may feel terribly indignant at me for turning you into this form, you should know that whatever power you would have gained from your Trigger event, you would use it to save the world./

/For more information, please select this tutorial video and other related CODEXES./

While I felt like screaming in rage at whoever this ROB was, it was more important to see whatever this tutorial would show me. The tutorial was a video about the Riftborn, their origins, their abilities, and their views on this dimension and its features. The video lasted for fifteen minutes and I was left feeling stunned after watching it. "My powers come from aliens!" was the thought replaying through my mind over and over again.

The next thing I did was looking through the Abilities Tab. The abilities I saw there include the following:

**Time Freeze - **I could stop time in a large area. This effect would last until I choose to undo it.

**Temporal Adjustment - **I and my allies could move at normal speed in an area while our enemies would move much slower through time.

**Singularities - **I could create a small field of compressed time, dilated time, or a time loop, that would last for several hours or minutes depending on my choices and the resources I currently have.

**Reset - **I could create an anchor point in the spacetime continuum that would allow me to go back in time in case I made a mistake. However, I could only create one Anchor point at a time.

**White Matter Creation - **I could transform the normal matter in this dimension into the higher dimensional white matter that was found in Coroz. I could then manipulate the created white matter in order to change it into something else.

**Temporal Restoration - **I could restore both living or nonliving things in an area to their pristine state before they were damaged. However, such an action costs an amount of energy that increases depending on the size of the things. This energy could be gained back by feeding off the temporal energies of an object. This feeding process would cause the targeted object to age faster than normal, reducing its overall lifespan.

Such mastery over time astounded me! With these powers I could become a hero! But how would I do it? I then noticed another alert in the Communications Tab. Selecting it, I saw this message:

/Your generous patron, the ROB, created a base for you underneath the entire city. It is filled with the infrastructure that is vital for your heroic endeavors. The base however is currently inactive. To activate it, you would first have to enter into the storm drains to find one of the secret entrances to the base. Thus your first mission will be to find the secret entrance./

/Side mission: While your own abilities are quite impressive, it would be better for you if you acquire a weapon for yourself. Thus, the goal of this mission is to obtain several suitable weapons for your own use, preferably from one of the unlawful elements in the city./

While I greatly appreciated the fact that I supposedly have my own ready made base, I still felt nervous about going out into the city looking like an alien female robot. Fortunately, it was already near the midnight hour when I escaped from my locker. This meant that there would be less people active in the city. Still, I would have to be prepared to use my abilities to escape from any bad situations.

Before I went out of Winslow, I reviewed the other tabs to find out what in them. The Status Tab showed that my body is at 100% health and it also showed me a list of all the main components of my body. My robotic shell was powered by my soul core though it could absorb electricity to energize the repair nanobots in case of injuries occurring. Weirdly and embarrassingly enough, I have components that are analogous to both male and female reproductive organs. The information about it showed that the process of reproduction for this form is similar to that of human reproduction except that nanobots are used to create the embryo, instead of organic cells. I would still need another Riftborn in order to produce babies since I couldn't fertilize myself.

The Inventory Tab showed that I have one Transdimensional Storage Device, a Taser pistol, and a sword made of white metal. To bring them out of storage, I supposedly have to select them, then select Yes or No to bring it out or not. I brought all of them out and I caught them with my hands before they fell to the floor.

The TSD looked like a 10 cm× 10cm× 10cm gray metal box with odd symbols on it. The Taser pistol did not have a cartridge, instead it had long prongs of metal at its business end. The sword was 20 inches long, was monobladed, and it had a red crossguard and a golden handle.

The information about all these things were found in the Codex. In there is stated that the Transdimensional Storage Device is supposedly a box containing a pocket dimension where I could store many things. The Taser Pistol has been stated to fire non-lethal bolts of electricity at a target instead of using disposable wires like a normal Taser gun. The information about the sword stated that it was made of incredibly dense white matter and that it had a monomolecular edge. This meant that the sword could slice through almost any materials.

I placed the sword back in my limited subspace storage, leaving the TSD and Taser pistol in my two hands. I continued checking out the next Tab. The Skills Tab showed various skills I could obtain when I have enough skill points. These skills include, but are not limited to, the following:

**Mechanical Genius - **Increases your mastery of engineering skills by 50%.

**Lover of Weapons - **Increases your proficiency with any weapon you use by 20%.

**Aura of Respect - **People become more willing to hear your message and treat you with respect.

**Efficient Tactician - **You can analyze another beings strategies and intentions just by looking at them. You can also create effective counter tactics against your foes.

There would be more skills to unlock after I had obtained at least two of these basic skills. So after reviewing all these things, I got ready to get out of Winslow and find this underground base. I went to the front door and exited the school. Looking around me, I could see that there were hardly any people walking by.

I quickly crossed the road and went into an empty alleyway between two large buildings. I then levitated until I reached the rooftop of one of the buildings. My plan was to move from roof to roof until I found the location pinged by the locator tag in my visual feed.

I was moving above the rooftops of buildings, watching out for anyone flying about at this time. Anytime I had to cross busy roads, I quickly did a Time Freeze and crossed them before the effect ended. I was nearing the tagged location when I heard the firing of guns through my audio receptors. Moving closer to the source of the sounds, I came upon a firefight happening between members of the E88 gang and members of the ABB gang.

Looking at the scene from my high vantage point on the rooftop of an old apartment building, I saw that there were no capes present at the moment. Seeing an opportunity to do some hero work tonight, I cast a Time Freeze on the area where the firefight was happening. Once I saw that the gangsters were all temporarily frozen in time, I dropped down from the rooftop to see what I could restrain them with. It was quite fascinating to see bullets frozen in mid flight.

Before the Time Freeze ended several minutes later, I collected most of the guns, phones, and knives the gangsters had on them and stored them in my TSD. I even moved the bullets around so that they wouldn't hit anything important. I also fired blasts of electricity at the thugs with my Taser pistol. When the Time Freeze ended, the gangsters ended up falling to the ground, rendered unconscious by the Taser pistol. Using a phone, I called up the Brockton Bay Police Department.

"What is your emergency?"

"There has been a firefight that happened here at Birch Street. The offending gangsters have been rendered unconscious. Please send police officers to apprehend them. Thank you!" My voice sounded robotic with multiple tones.

"Miss… are you a cape?"

I ended the phone call and went on my way. I eventually came upon the manhole cover that led to the section of the storm drain that contains the secret entrance to the base. After lifting it up and going inside, my optics shone like flashlights, illuminating the walls of the storm drain. My mind felt extremely disgusted about the river of horrid organic muck flowing below me.

My visual feed noticed an oddly dry section of the storm drain. Placing a grappler upon it, and the section moved sideways to reveal a door. Turning the white doorknob, I went inside the metal tunnel leading to the base. The doorway concealed itself again after I went through it.

The tunnel had lit up with glowing white lines once I came in but the rest of the base was not yet activated. Wandering through the place, I came upon a room filled with monitors and control panels. I went inside that room, looking for a switch to switch on the rest of the place.

I quickly find a raised column of metal in the center of the room. On its top was a handprint. Pressing my right hand on top of it caused a white glow to shoot down the surrounding wires. I then heard the sound of something powering up before the overhead lamps started to turn on one after the other. The computer monitors all turned on. A sphere of golden metal rose from the floor and floated towards me before projecting a black screen with a simple blue lined face on it.

/Greetings. You must be the one assigned to this base. I am Robert, your friendly AI assistant. How can I help you today?/

"Hello Robert. I am Taylor Hebert. Can you please guide me through the rest of the base. I wish to see what I will be working with here."

/Certainly Madam Hebert. This room here on the Upper Level is the Command Center of the base. Other rooms of the Upper Level include the Habitation Quarters for the staff of this base along with the Training Rooms. The rooms of the Lower Level include the Nanoforge rooms and several Singularity Reactor rooms, as well as the Teleporter Hub./

/The nanoforge rooms serve production facilities for drones, weapons, and vehicles. You can issue production commands to these facilities via the network here in the Command Center./

**Primary mission completed! Gain 1 skillpoint! Congratulations! **

**Side mission completed! Gain 1 skillpoint! Congratulations!**

Hearing what Robert said, I went to a computer monitor and used the available mouse and keyboard to find the necessary programs. Clicking the red gear icon labeled Production, I saw window with various Tabs and pictures with labels such as Drones, Weapons, Vehicles, and Other Equipment.

Clicking on the Drone Tab, I saw a picture of a humanoid Combat Drone and a picture of a Nanomachine Labor Drone. I selected the picture of Nanomachine Labor Drone. These drones looked like tiny white geometric forms moving around in a swarm. These drones could harvest resources as well as build things. Clicking the Produce button, I then selected 10 groups as a good amount for now. After clicking Yes, I then looked at my Skill Tab to obtain skills with my recently gained skill points.

With my two skill points, I chose the skills **Mechanical Genius **and **Efficient Tactician **since they would be quite useful in the beginning of my heroic career. Hero, that is what I can be now. But how about my father? He must be worried about me by now.

"Robert, how large is this base?"

/This base stretches beneath the entire city Madam Hebert. There are tunnels connecting this base to different parts of the underground sewer system. Locations can also be reached by the Teleporter Hub, though precise coordinates must be inputted into the system to ensure that the portal would not end up somewhere random./

/Hmm. It seems that the Labor drones have been constructed. Do you wish me to send them out to harvest the needed raw material from ground?/

"Yes Robert, you can do that."

/Madam Hebert, I can communicate with you via a network link to your processor. Are you fine with me conversing with you in this manner?/

/This does seem more efficient than wasting energy in vibrating air molecules. Thank you for telling me Robert./

/You are welcome Madam./

While the labor drones would start harvesting raw materials, me and Robert went to one of the nanoforge rooms. This nanoforge room was the size of classroom and is assigned to weapons production. The room was painted white while the nanoforge itself was a small assembly line. At the beginning the assembly line is a large black cube connected to a PC. The black cube contains the nanobots that would consume raw material and transform it into more nanobots. A mass of nanobots would then be deposited at the start of the conveyor belt. As it moves along the conveyor belt, the mass of nanomachine would transform into whole weapons or weapon components depending on the preset instructions sent to it.

I had gone to this room in order to tinker with the six assault rifles and eight handguns I had acquired from those gangsters earlier. Bringing them out, I looked them over and thought of what I could do with them. There were designs from the Codex that I wanted to try out.

There is a design for an assault rifle that had its ammunition propelled through magnetic coils. There is also a weapon design for something called a Ravager Gun, which could fire energy beams that can disintegrate matter. There is another weapon design about something called a Rift gun that could open two linked portals for traveling.

I turned all the acquired guns into white matter with my White Matter Creation ability. After doing that, I grabbed all the floating pieces of white matter and focused hard on making the weapon designs found in the Codex. A few minutes later, the clumps of white matter formed into those three different weapons.

The Accelerator Gun is a gray, blocky, 1.2 meters long gun that shoots .75 caliber kinetic or explosive rounds. This gun has a range of one kilometer. This weapon can be outfitted with mods such as telescopic sights, longer barrels, noise suppressors, and bayonets.

The Ravager Gun is a one meter long gun with a green painted barrel with rows of blue lights running along its length. It has a range of one kilometer.

The Rift gun is a 1.2 meter long device that looked like a dark blue metal box that has an orange octagonal barrel attached to it. The box has handles for both hands hold and a control pad with various buttons that would input the required information that would determine how far the portals would appear and how long they would last. Inside the box itself is a miniature artificial wormhole that would bridge the two portals. The gun would generate the blue entry portal first. After doing that, it then would generate the orange exit portal.

Additional information about the Rift gun stated that it could open portals to other dimensions if I input the correct coordinates. The Codex apperently contained a few coordinates to other dimensions. For example, there are coordinates (606,606) for a dimension known as the Empyrean. There is also (314,314) which are the coordinates of the Endless Space dimension.

While I went to test out my new weapons in one of the training rooms, I sent commands to the nanoforges to produce more Labor drones, Combat drones, and weapons. It would be very useful to have my own army if the gang situation in Brockton Bay developed into open warfare. In the large training room, I trained myself on how to use these weapons. Due to my mechanical form, my aiming and targeting skills were sufficient. I enjoyed blasting apart the yellow, glowing, virtual targets projected by the sets of projectors spread throughout the room.

After that was done, I stored my weapons in the TSD and went back to the Command Center to talk with Robert again. While having an active AI in your base would make most people nervous, I thought that Robert would be a nice friend to have. When I entered the command center, Robert was hovering silently over the center of the place. He then turned around and floated over to me.

/Madam Hebert, as I was scanning the news channels earlier, I saw something that you need to know. Here it is./

Robert projected a video segment of a news channel. I wondered what the important news was when the news segment showed the front of my home was lined with yellow police tape. The headline that showed next made me freeze in horrified shock. "Breaking News! A homeowner was killed in house by a burglar. The suspected burglar has been apprehended by the police hours later."

/No! No! It cannot be! This news says that Dad had been killed in a robbery yesterday!/

I felt my world shattered as I realized that both my parents are dead and that I was now an orphan. I let out a wail of static through my speaker for several long agonizing minutes. After that was done, Robert came closer to me. I just looked at him sadly as I thought he was probably going to say some kind but useless words to comfort me.

/Madam Hebert, I know of a way to bring both of your parents back. This method would involve an alternate dimension known as the Warp./


End file.
